The Commission delibrated upon the allegations of alleged rigging leveled by PTI Chairman Mr. Imran Khan and former Additional Secretary of ECP, Muhammad Afzal Khan.

 

       ELECTION COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN

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                                                        PRESS RELEASE

            Islamabad, the 27th August 2014.-       A meeting  of the Election  Commission of  Pakistan  was  held  today  under  the  chairmanship  of    Hon’ble  Acting  Chief  Election Commissioner  of  Pakistan,  Justice  Anwar  Zaheer  Jamali  and  attended  by  the  Hon’ble Members;   Justice  (R)  Riaz  Kayani,  Justice  (R) Shazad  Akbar  Khan  and  Justice  (R)  Fazal-ur-Rehman.  Mr.  Ishtiak  Ahmad  Khan,  Secretary Election Commission was also present in the meeting.

The Commission delibrated upon the allegations of alleged rigging leveled by PTI Chairman Mr. Imran Khan and former Additional Secretary of ECP,  Muhammad Afzal Khan.

Rejecting all the alleged allegations as baseless and without any truth or substance, the Commission deemed it appropriate to remind the nation of difficult circumstances under which the May 2013 General Elections were held and which led to the first-ever peaceful transition of power from one civilian government to another. The Commission observed that large number of electoral reforms were introduced to ensure that elections were held justly, fairly and honestly which created lot of interest in the world outside. Consequently, keen interest was shown in observing the elections in Pakistan.

 The Election Observer Missions of Japan, International Human Rights Commission, European Union Observation Mission, NDI, Common Wealth observers, Gender Concerns International visited various constituencies and after the poll, they all declared the General Elections 2013 as free, fair,  credible  and  successful  and they also made  some  observations  and  recommendations.

Regarding  appointment  of  officials from judiciary  as  Returning  officers,  the  Commission noted that during a consultative meeting with major political parties in September 2012, the political parties requested for appointment of officers from  judiciary to act as DROs, ROs in General Elections-2013 and  resultantly the ECP as a whole requested the former Hon'ble Chief Justice of Pakistan accordingly, while the Hon'ble Justice Tassaduq Jillani was only then an Acting Chief Election Commissioner for a few days. This was followed by another similar letter written by the former Chief Election Commissioner Justice (R) Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim to Chief Justice of Pakistan.

It is worthwhile to mention here that in the Judicial Policy-2009, it had been clearly decided that judiciary will not be part of any electoral process. However, upon the requests made by the ECP, the National Judicial Policy Forum comprising the four Chief Justices of High Courts headed by the Chief Justice of Pakistan very kindly considered the request of ECP as well  as that of political  parties  and  allowed  the  judicial  officers  to  be  part  of  electoral  process. Thereafter the Hon'ble Chief Justices of four high court placed the services  of the officials from the lower judiciary at the disposal of the ECP for performance of duties as DROs and ROs.

About allegation of printing of extra ballot papers on 9th May 2013, the  Hon’ble  Commission  observed that  the  allegation  carried  no  weight  as  the  PEC,  Punjab  Mr Mehboob  Anwar  had  clearly  denied  the  allegations  in  his  statement  that  is  reproduced “I,  Mehboob  Anwar,  PEC  Punjab,  hereby  vehemently  rebut  the  allegations  leveled against me as totally baseless, frivolous and without any substance. I did my duty with clean hands. I categorically deny and state that not even a single ballot paper was got printed from any private printing press by me, as alleged.”

The Hon’ble  Commission  unanimously  condemned  the  allegations leveled  by  ex-Additional Secretary Muhammad Afzal Khan  which  were  completely  baseless and unfounded as he himself had admitted in the Interview that he had no proof or evidence to substantiate his allegations. It was also observed that Mr Afzal Khan himself had always admitted the fairness, impartiality and credibility of the General Elections 2013 in his various interactions with media. The commission expressed resentment that the former  official  of  the  ECP  had  tried  to  malign  the  sacred  national  institution without having any proof.

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